Papias () or Papias of Hierapolis was a Greek Apostolic Father, Bishop of Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale, Turkey), and author who lived .From Stories to Canon oyc.yale.eduPapia Hierapolitanus, Fragmenta He is mainly known for gathering oral stories about Jesus and his disciples from John the Elder and the daughters of Philip. Papias compiled these in the Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord (),Kok, M. J. (2017). Did Papias of Hierapolis Use the Gospel according to the Hebrews as a Source? Journal of Early Christian Studies, 25(1), 29–53. https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2017.0001 of which brief excerpts appear in the works of Irenaeus of Lyons () and Eusebius of Caesarea (). A scholarly consensus dates his work to around 110 AD They are considered an important early source on Christian oral tradition and especially on the origins of the canonical Gospels.
Life Although Papias's precise dates are unknown, he is traditionally born around 60–70 AD.Hill, C. E. (2006). Papias of Hierapolis. The Expository Times, 117(8), 309–315. https://doi.org/10.1177/0014524606065065 He lived in Hierapolis, Phrygia, in Asia Minor, and flourished in the early 2nd century. The name Papias was common in the region, suggesting that he may have been a native of the area.
Much of what is known about Papias comes from later testimony and from inferences drawn from his own writings. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna, describes him as "an ancient man", "a hearer of John [of Ephesus]", and "a companion of Polycarp".Papias. (1885). Fragments of Papias (A. Roberts & J. Donaldson, Trans.). In A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, & A. C. Coxe (Eds.), Ante-Nicene Fathers (Vol. 1). Christian Literature Publishing Co. Revised and edited for New Advent by K. Knight. Eusebius places Papias in the same period as Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp,Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.36 .2. and portrays him as a learned collector of early Christian tradition but a poor interpreter, especially in his millennialism.
Death The claim that Papias died around 164 AD is based on a late and probably erroneous tradition, commonly explained as a confusion with the martyr Papylus/Papylas. Dale B. Martin places his death around 130.
Fragments of Papias' work
Dating A scholarly consensus dates Papias's five-volume work titled Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord to around 110 AD.: "An impressive consensus has arisen among specialists that Papias published the five volumes of his magnum opus around 110 CE." Many scholars giving a range of 100–120, though a date of 125 or 130 remains commonly cited. William Davies and Dale Allison allows for the possibility that it was written in 100 AD or prior, and Anna M. Sitz favours an earlier date between 90–120.Sitz, A. M. (2023). Pagan Inscriptions, Christian Viewers: The Afterlives of Temples and Their Texts in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Eusebius refers to Papias only in his third book, and seems to date him before the opening of his fourth book in 109. Papias himself knows several New Testament books, whose dates are themselves controversial, and was stated to be informed by John the Elder, Aristion, the daughters of Philip and others who had themselves heard the Twelve Apostles. He is also called a companion of the long-lived Polycarp (69–155),Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5.33 .4. The original Greek is preserved apud Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39 .1. Agapius of Hierapolis dates one of his histories to the 12th year of Trajan's rule (110 AD). For all these reasons, Papias is thought to have written around the turn of the 2nd century.
Reconstruction of the five books There are indications that the work of Papias was still extant in the late Middle Ages, See by Stephen C. Carlson. but the full text is now lost. Extracts, however, appear in a number of other writings, some of which cite a book number.For an extensive assessment of the fragments as reproduced in Norelli and Holmes, see Timothy B. Sailors MacDonald proposes the following tentative reconstruction of the five books, following a presumed Matthaean order.
Sources and methods In the preface of his book, he describes his way of gathering information:
According to this passage, Papias questioned travelers passing through Hierapolis, especially surviving disciples of Jesus and the elders, who had personally known the Twelve Apostles. One of these disciples was Aristion, probably bishop of nearby Smyrna,Apostolic Constitutions 7.46 .8. and another was John the Elder, usually identified (despite Eusebius' protest) with John the Evangelist, who lived in nearby Ephesus and from whom Papias heard directly; Papias frequently cited both.Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39 .7, 14. Papias was also learned other traditions from the daughters of Philip, who had settled in Hierapolis.Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39 .9.
There is debate over Papias' final statement in the quotation above about the "living and abiding voice." One view, common in 20th-century scholarship, holds that written sources in Papias' time were valued less than oral ones.E.g., see Loveday Alexander, "The Living Voice: Scepticism towards the Written Word in Early Christian and in Graeco-Roman Texts," in The other argues that "living voice" was a topos, a set phrase for personal teaching and training, so that Papias was preferring direct instruction to learning from books alone.E.g., see
Gospel origins
Papias provides the earliest extant account of who wrote the Gospels. Eusebius preserves two (possibly) verbatim excerpts from Papias on the origins of the Gospels, one concerning MarkEusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39 .15. Translations from p. 203. and then another concerning Matthew,Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39 .16a. Translations from as well as the First Epistle of John and the First Epistle of Peter.
On Mark, Papias cites John the Elder:
The excerpt regarding Matthew says only:
Immediately thereafter, Eusebius states that Papias "employed testimonies from the first epistle of John and from that of Peter likewise";Eusebius, Church Histories § 3.39.16: κέχρηται δ' ὁ αὐτὸς μαρτυρίαις ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰωάννου προτέρας ἐπιστολῆς καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς Πέτρου ὁμοίως the exact meaning of this statement is ambiguous.
How to interpret these quotations from Papias has long been a matter of controversy; some scholars have doubted the Elder's supposition of Peter's involvement in Mark's composition, but his attribution of the Gospel to John Mark is largely accepted.
The word logia ()—which also appears in the title of Papias' work—is itself problematic. In non-Christian contexts, the usual meaning was oracles, but since the 19th century it has been interpreted as sayings, which sparked numerous theories about a lost "Sayings Gospel", now called Q, resembling the Gospel of Thomas. But the parallelism implies a meaning of things said or done, which suits the canonical Gospels well.
The apparent claim that Matthew wrote in Hebrew—which in Greek could refer to either Hebrew or Aramaic—is echoed by many other ancient authorities.E.g., Irenaeus, ; Ephrem, ; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.10 .3. Modern scholars have proposed numerous explanations for this assertion, in light of the prevalent view that canonical Matthew was composed in Greek and not translated from Semitic. One theory is that Matthew himself produced firstly a Semitic work and secondly a recension of that work in Greek; Josephus also claimed to write a translation of an Aramaic version of The Jewish War, though both the extant Gospel of Matthew and the War are not translations. Another is that others translated Matthew into Greek rather freely. Another is that Papias simply means "Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ" as a Hebrew style of Greek. Another possibility forwarded by Maurice Casey is that Papias refers to a distinct work now lost, perhaps a sayings collection like Q or the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews. "It was later Church Fathers who confused Matthew's collections of sayings of Jesus with our Greek Gospel of Matthew. I suggest that a second source of the confusion lay with the real author of this Gospel. One possibility is that he was also called Matthias or Matthew. These were common enough Jewish names, and different forms were similar enough." Others argue Papias faithfully recorded what was related to him, but misunderstood the subjects of narrations with which he was unfamiliar.
As for Mark, the difficulty has been in understanding the relationship described between Mark and Peter—whether Peter recalled from memory or Mark recalled Peter's preaching, and whether Mark translated this preaching into Greek or Latin or merely expounded on it, and if the former, publicly or just when composing the Gospel; modern scholars have explored a range of possibilities. Eusebius, as already mentioned, says that Papias also cited 1 Peter,Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39 .16.Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 2.15 .2. where Peter speaks of "my son Mark",. as corroboration. Within the 2nd century, this relation of Peter to Mark's Gospel is alluded to by JustinJustin Martyr, . and expanded on by Clement of Alexandria.Clement of Alexandria, Hypotyposeis 8, apud Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 2.15.1–2 , ; Clement of Alexandria, Adumbr. in Ep. can. in 1 Pet. 5:13 , apud Cassiodorus, In Epistola Petri Prima Catholica 1.3.
We do not know what else Papias said about these or the other Gospels—he certainly treated John—but some see Papias as the likely unattributed source of at least two later accounts of the Gospel origins. Bauckham argues that the Muratorian Canon () has drawn from Papias; the extant fragment, however, preserves only a few final words on Mark and then speaks about Luke and John. Hill argues that Eusebius' earlier account of the origins of the four GospelsEusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.24 .5–13. is also drawn from Papias.